Broadchurch 3 – and other shows that outstayed their welcome

The ITV crime drama will be back for a third series – despite many viewers feeling that the second one wasn’t a patch on the first. It’s not the first drama that possibly should have bowed out earlier …

On Monday, Broadchurch ended with a big fat full stop. Villains were found and dealt with. Broken relationships began to heal. Miller found peace. Hardy, all his wrongs now righted, could finally depart the town for a new location where it might actually rain for once.

It wasn’t perfect, but it felt satisfying. And then the ITV announcer decided to spoil it all by revealing that everything would be undone by a third season.

Broadchurch to return for third series with David Tennant and Olivia Colman

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We’ve been here before, of course. In an ideal world, Broadchurch would have remained a one-season wonder; a punchy whodunnit that dealt with the aftermath of a single murder. In an ideal world, this last season – with its off-puttingly funky courthouses and irritating Sandbrook diversions and part-blind legal superwomen – would have never existed. And even if series three turns out to be a blazing return to form, it’ll still feel a little superfluous.

But Broadchurch is not alone. The economies of television favour long-running shows, even ones originally designed to self-destruct. The series three announcement means that it might now be time to consign Broadchurch to the bin marked shows that unnecessarily outlived their welcome. Shows that I’m about to spoil for you, such as:

Broadchurch recap: season two finale – episode eight

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The Killing

Chris Chibnall clearly watched the first series of The Killing which, like Broadchurch, was an entire series about the shockwaves caused by one horrific crime. But there’s a chance that he didn’t watch the last two series of The Killing, because they were respectively Sarah Lund v the War In Afghanistan and Sarah Lund v the Global Banking Industry, and they were so silly that they now stand as a valuable lesson to all other television-makers about the value of quitting while you’re ahead.

24

The ending to the first series of 24 – with Jack Bauer sobbing into the limp body of his dead wife – was one of television’s all-time best. He’d put everything on the line to protect his country, and he’d paid the ultimate price. The fact that he’d have to do almost exactly the same thing a year later diluted the power of that scene. And the fact that, a few years after that, he’d blow up his evil dad on an oil rig the same day that an entire American city was destroyed by a nuclear blast cheapened it irreparably.

Prison Break

So, you’ve written a show called Prison Break. It’s all about a man who plans a prison break and then successfully carries out a prison break. Where do you go after that? Well, you can do a series where the guy who broke out of prison ends up back in prison. And then you can do a series where he breaks out of that prison. And then you can do a final series where everyone involved just sits around cursing the invention of multi-season contracts.

Homeland … lost its bottle. Photograph: Twentieth Century Fox/Photograph: Twentieth Century Fox

Homeland

Homeland lost its bottle during the final episode of its first series. Had Brody detonated his suicide vest and killed the vice president, the show would have been an indelible, beautifully finite piece of television. But then, if Brody died, what would Homeland do the following year? So it kept him alive and spent a further two years pushing him into increasingly ridiculous situations until it finally had the nerve to kill him off, at which point Homeland became a programme about nothing.

The Fall

The first series of The Fall went to great lengths to set up an epic showdown between Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan. But then, instead of giving us that showdown, the final episode essentially consisted of Anderson turning to camera, saying, “Tune in next year, folks!” and skipping away. It was disappointing, but not as disappointing as the second series, which was the very essence of pointlessness wrapped up in a silky blouse.